So What: Your guess is as good as mine as to why there’s sudden, spiking interest in this teen retailer’s shares. The retail landscape’s fraught with difficulties these days, and Pacific Sunwear has reported dwindling sales and posted annual losses for the last two fiscal years, and annual comps for the year ended January 2010 plunged a nauseating 20%.

Now What: Investors should avoid becoming infected with unsubstantiated bullishness about Pacific Sunwear shares right now. It faces formidable competition in the teen retail space from companies like Abercrombie & Fitch(NYSE: ANF), Zumiez(Nasdaq: ZUMZ), Aeropostale(NYSE: ARO), and Buckle(NYSE: BKE), just to name a few. If there’s no apparent reason why Pacific Sunwear’s popping today, following suit and snapping up shares may be an unreasonable move investors could come to regret.

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Author

Alyce Lomax is a columnist for Fool.com specializing in environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues and an analyst for Motley Fool One. From October 2010 through June 2015, she managed the real-money Prosocial Portfolio, which integrated socially responsible investing factors into stock analysis. Follow @AlyceLomax